Main links:

Track:

So that's it! On this very day I am going to finally replace the Drupal installation on my domain to a Symphony CMS based site I was developing since about a month. What led me to this decision? In this article I will try to summarize some experiences I had with these two systems trying to do some comparisons.

The summarizing and comparing by no means will be objective, it is probably rather subjective. You see, I was not quite satisfied with Drupal, so I decided to switch over to something else. Contrary what usually happens such times: that one who switch over from something unsuitable will rather go into something else at best abysmal which he tries to justify in his struggle, I experienced something different. Drupal was not bad, but not good for me. Symphony on the other hand seems to actually do just what I need! So I will go down to the business among these lines.

Drupal CMS

I had some experience with this content management system between 2010 and 2011 when I tried to run some personal site over it. At first I started with Drupal 6, then as Drupal 7 came out, I switched over to that. I did not much get in the arcane depths of the system, just what was necessary to properly create themes for it. So basically I could be considered an user of it.

What I liked in the system:

Completeness. It has just about everything one needs.

Vast user base. This implies good development rate and probably more security.

Easy to start, no programming required.

What I disliked:

No proper separation of the presentation layer making any reasonable theming a pain.

Relative rigidness of the system.

Conflicting external modules (Well, not entirely the system's fault, but see further).

I also have to mention that I liked the transition between Drupal 6 and Drupal 7. In this transition many parts of the system seemed like it got streamlined, gaining some more logical and coherent construction.

From my dislikes the most important is probably the topmost: When you theme a Drupal site, it is just a pain that you can be sure that any external module you come across would stuff it's own JavaScript and style sheets in your site. This is usually not too disturbing for simple black-over-white designs, it may look bad, but useable. However as soon as someone either starts building more advanced JavaScript based theme components, or just want a bright-on-dark design (Like how most of my designs look like), modules will start to wreak havoc. Especially some of the fundamental external modules like CTools (Which, being a base for Panels, Views and stuff, you will definitely need).

My other dislike is what I called rigidness. This will come apparent probably only when one would compare Drupal to Symphony: In Drupal you have the node based structure which you just can not form too much to fit your tastes.

The conflicts I mentioned between externals is rather hypothetical. I didn't much experience broken database and such during my experiences with Drupal, but with a site with more of these modules in place you could really be on the edge of the seat when it starts pulling down updates. Will it work or will you have a sweet dip in the moors of backups for days, that's the question (I had a friend who ran a Drupal 6 site which I helped some with: Probably a little he overshot on the amount of modules installed. No wonder there were problems with his site).

So that's for Drupal, and what I had with it. Now onwards to Symphony!

Symphony CMS

Well, I was peeking in this CMS for several months before, but never had the guts to actually get it up and running some of my stuff. Nice promises, but oh my god, learn XSLT, chain data sources here and there, and figure out the whole thing reading an eyesore dark on #FFFFFF white text all the way? No way! Or is there a way? Yes there was. First I took a small dive in the admin theme to get rid of that #FFFFFF(uuuuu... Associate whatever you want), then things started rolling like muck-trucks downhills on a six lane highway. So let's summarize it:

What I like about Symphony:

Set up and link your data however you want.

A nice separation of data management, logic and presentation.

After learned, it is really easy to tame the system to do just what you need.

What I dislike about it:

The system still looks somewhat like being in an experimental stage.

Support for members still looks experimental in external modules.

You need to wade through loads of black-on-white pages to learn it.

So basically the main thing I like in it is that it is sort of programmable. I have no problem with the choices of languages here, XSLT is fine for putting together the presentation even though it might be new for ones coming across this system the first time. It also responds well to customizing: I never felt the system would "go on strike" not wanting to do what I imagined. The system is plain and simple all the way, and wherever one goes in customizing it, it seems to work as expected.

The bad part is the experimental look, and the partial lack of members. This latter is not terribly bad for small sites out in the wild. If one needs, the members extension seems to integrate nicely in the core system in a logical way. The experimentalism may feel like it would be a problem in security: for me the system based on it's usage as I see should be past that point where it would be more insecure than other content management systems.

Whites are probably just my problem, nevertheless it might be important. I might not be the only being in the world cursed with an excessive eye sensitivity what makes my eyes bleeding out their sockets staring at white on a monitor. It is true though that Drupal is also white by default, so I could mention this there too. The difference was that with Drupal the admin interface could be switched to a different theme right at start, and in Drupal, one just doesn't do all the site building on the admin interface anyways. With Symphony for most part you have to work in there, so you just have to look at it's design a lot no matter if you like it or not.

Conclusion

So that's it, roughly what I thought about the two systems in comparison. It is apparent that the two serve two entirely different audiences, so it is not like one is better than another. For me Symphony worked since I am a programmer and like to fiddle with the bits and stuff. Others may want a system right on the table, done and functional, not having or wanting to waste time on picking up the necessary knowledge to put it together themselves. Drupal works for those: It gives a system ready to use just needing the content to fill it with.

Recommended:

This large digital image was drawn for more than two months until it was completed (Or better to say I thought there is no much to do with it any more). It is one of my better pieces although it suffers some coloring problems. The theme would be an abandoned city on Earth, with cheetaans wandering around seeking for the sunshine. This is a part of the "original" cheetaan story, that is the story of the first interstellar war between human and cheetaan.

Tanis exploring some burnt down ruins. They could be Tikireni and Xitka from New World 2648, blue eyes for a Xi are not common. The Xi is the dark wolf-like creature, the Nir is the cheetah. The background is an own photograph, taken of a small burnt-down and abandoned summerhouse.

Cheetaan city scene. Experimenting with foliage, and at last, some proper colouring. The Cheetaan (Tani), first time portrayed in a typical city setting of theirs. In the distance, the organic statue of the centre, a white arch of plant-sustained Mag-Lev track, with of course a lot of green, and the two Tani races who are primary builders of this civilization.

Website design for my stuff used between late 2009 and 2010. This design was both used as a static site at first, and then was ported to Drupal 6. It was a relatively simple design apart from the dynamic width hacks, still retaining compatibility with the broken png support of the (even back then old) Microsoft Explorer 6 browsers.

Just an another large European Green Lizard shot, this time exploiting the capabilities of my old Olympus C2500L camera even better than in the past year - at least I believe so. This one did not even need post-processing at the colour department, it just came out all right. It was one of the good results of a trip targeting especially these lizards.

Signal from the Sky album cover art, for David K. Newton. This is my first real commission work, started from his sketches, and dreamed further after his tunes then upcoming under the title Signal from the Sky!

The 15th March is special in Hungary, we would be celebrating the anniversary of an important uprising, one against the Hapsburg dynasty demanding more autonomy for our country within their empire. It was the pinnacle of the age of reformation, but one which later got usurped like all the other movements happening in that year. Then, today... It seems like people here lost all their sanity siding with an oppressive government and very few caring of any movement which tries any reformation.

We are European. A quick image sketched up portraying myself in the protests of April, 2017, Hungary, protesting against the actions of the government leading Hungary out of Europe and humanity itself, back to the dark ages. An now I have a flag of the European Union!

A design i made for a now defunct hosting company which were asking for designer on a forum for free hosting account. It was good until it lasted - at about one month. Well, life suxx :p. This is a classic fixed width design, old, but i still like how i managed to get those blues of ice together.

Twenty-six forty-eight... Space is opened wide, our ships reach towards planets of distant solar systems, man is colonizing near and far. The same time Earth is struggling by overpopulation, severe social, political and economic problems. Many who can afford, embark on the journey, a perilous journey towards the unknown... A sci-fi novel set in the distant future, telling the story of a young man, who tries to find his place in this strange new world (currently Hungarian only).

Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus reconstruction (at least an attempt at it), as of 2015 knowledge: the Ibrahim et al. papers from 2014 and the later adjustments on the hindlimb size, discarding the quadrupedal stance. Fleshed out according to some own ideas as well as various existing knowledge on the animal.

Title screen plan for the Cheetaan Legacy game. It might need some color adjustments (There is a dark red color which might be invisible on some displays) which I might do at a later time editing this graphics further. The problem is mainly that my monitor has a really weird color space at darker color levels.

Pencil sketch on some A/5 leaf. Well, this is really on "some" A/5 leaf, although this is not as bad as some other such old pieces of mine. This was just on some thin paper with a triangle grid on it's back which would show through no matter what arcane thing you do with your scanner.

An European Green Lizard in the hills above Budapest, Hungary. Spring came, so the insects started crawling out from their winter hideouts, and then that's the start of the game for the lower hunters of the food chain, the lizards. It took a while to get this one, about a hour of waiting the thing to come off from a thorny bush where it hid, but it did worth!

What happens when something gets me really inspired in the process... (Click the image to get it in 1920x1200) You could also check out the related article for the backgrounds and some research over airworthiness. Enjoy!

Flight of a Dragon is a retro style game for the Uzebox open source game console, a bit of 8 bit madness involving an ATMega 644 and a bit of electronics to get it producing a video signal and accepting input from an SNES controller. Now the game is complete so you can finally lead the dragon to his salvation! Thanks to emulation, you may also try it out within your browser!